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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25938358">the way you kiss me, and why i cannot bear it</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/umbr4e/pseuds/umbr4e'>umbr4e</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Angst, Bisexual Shinguji Korekiyo, Denial of Feelings, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Friends With Benefits, Gay Amami Rantaro, Heartache, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Shinguji Korekiyo-centric, but enough to be rated teen and up, but its barely anything, but nothing explicit, unless i go apeshit and give it a part 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:00:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,055</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25938358</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/umbr4e/pseuds/umbr4e</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes they went weeks, even months without meeting, but one of the few things consistent in both their lives was the knowledge that inevitably, undoubtedly, they would find each other.</p><p>So they continued. There was no point letting go if they were just going to end up laughing together again, is there?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amami Rantaro/Shinguji Korekiyo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the way you kiss me, and why i cannot bear it</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>no one:<br/>me: yeah ahaha i like angst *hides tears*</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rantaro was never meant to be important.</p><p>He was significant, yes, being the only classmate to look Korekiyo in the eyes and treat him like a human was significant, undoubtedly, but the fact that years later he still was felt like an omen of change.</p><p>Horrible, unpredictable change. </p><p>Even now, with his chin resting atop Rantaro’s head, all he can feel is anxiety.</p><p>The night air is warm, and the bedsheets and hair stick to Korekiyo’s bare skin, constricting him further. Outside the open window, a young tree quivers in the wake of uncertain breeze, and he focuses on the shape of its leaves instead of the boy sleeping against his chest.<br/>
He isn’t sure what kind it is, though.</p><p>He lies there, listening for the sounds of the street below he has begun to find so much comfort in, but nothing permeates the fog of his state of mind.</p><p>Rantaro.</p><p>The first time they met, Korekiyo was crying.</p><p>In this cramped, warm bedroom, that reality feels so far away. </p><p>The first tentative touch on his shoulder turned into an awkward conversation that helped more than anything else had in the past.<br/>
Nods and polite conversation in the hallways turned into meaningful conversations, into drinking whatever Rantaro “borrowed” from his dad, into tearful secrets shared under the stars that they swore they had never told anyone else.<br/>
Even after graduating, after the celebrations and the goodbyes and what Korekiyo was sure was the end of an era for good, Rantaro lingered.</p><p>Sometimes they went weeks, even months without meeting, but one of the few things consistent in both their lives was the knowledge that inevitably, undoubtedly, they would find each other.</p><p>So they continued. There was no point letting go if they were just going to end up laughing together again, is there?</p><p>He remembers the first time they kissed.</p><p>He hates himself now for cherishing the memory. Hated himself for replaying it over and over again in his mind, clutching himself the next night and thinking about the feeling of Rantaro smiling against his lips like a lovestruck schoolgirl.<br/>
They had kissed again, though he doesn’t remember how the second one was initiated. Or the third. Or the fourth. Or any of the ones after.<br/>
After almost a year, such small details hardly mattered, not when he knew Rantaro’s body was etched into his memory forever.<br/>
He had memorized every mole, every birthmark, every scar, and kissed each one enough to recognize them blindfolded, had recognized them blindfolded before. Kisses became more than kisses, became heavy breaths and happy tears and vulnerability and Rantaro’s nails on his back and sometimes the opposite, and Korekiyo feared with every part of his being that it was becoming something more serious.</p><p>Not that Rantaro wasn’t serious.<br/>
On the contrary, Rantaro was important.<br/>
Rantaro was important to him.</p><p>The violent sea that was his anxiety hardened into the suffocating rock of heartache in his chest, before collapsing in on itself again, shifting from painful and heavy to terrifying and unpredictable in seconds.<br/>
Every moment spent with Rantaro was dangerously capable of causing emotions Korekiyo did not want to deal with, did not know how to deal with, because tender touches and consideration and companionship were nothing like any form of love he had been subject to in the past.</p><p>Instead of dealing with them, he rises, pushing a pillow under Rantaro’s head as gently as possible before stumbling ungracefully to the kitchen.</p><p>Clutching his throat, he fills one of the chipped mugs on the counter with cool water from the little fridge, steadying one hand with another to keep from dropping it.</p><p>It was not supposed to be like this.</p><p>Rantaro’s laughter was not supposed to shoot affection through his veins like a drug. His touch was not supposed to shock him as badly as it did, and his inevitable departure was not supposed to leave an ache within him so deep that he feared it may kill him.<br/>
And he wouldn’t have minded that, if he was honest. The only downside he could think of was never being able to kiss Rantaro again, but in the moment, that felt like a punishment worse than any version of purgatory the cultures he studied so extensively could ever dream of.</p><p>It’s ironic, perhaps.</p><p>After spending years dedicating his life to studying humans, studying their emotions, their reactions, thoughts, lives through traditions and stories and obscure mythologies passed down through generations, he can’t understand his own.</p><p>His thoughts are interrupted by a shuffling behind him.<br/>
“...Kiyo?”</p><p>“Rantaro. I apologize, I did not mean to wake you. You should get some rest.”</p><p>“It’s okay. I, uh… I had to go soon anyway. Early flight, you know how it is.”</p><p>The smile that tugs at the corners of his leps is bittersweet. </p><p>“Ever the adventurer, I see. Where are you off to this time?”</p><p>The amount of affection he feels at the mere action of Rantaro reaching a hand up to the back of his neck threatens to choke him.<br/>
“Italy again. I didn’t really get to explore the countryside last time.”</p><p>“How lovely. Bring me something back, will you?”<br/>
He picks at his wrist as he puts the now empty mug into the silver sink.</p><p>“Yeah. I will.” He pauses, as if struggling to express something important. “Kiyo… You’re okay, right?”</p><p>“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”</p><p>“...It’s nothing. You get some rest too, okay? Don’t stay awake at night missing me or something.”</p><p>“I would never do such a thing.”</p><p>Rantaro’s tired laughter is reassuring in all the wrong ways, and Korekiyo feels his heart skip a few beats, at least.<br/>
He almost doesn’t realise when their noses are almost touching, the difference in their height made up for when he was half dragged down by the shirt he pulled on just a few hours ago.<br/>
He laughs softly at Korekiyo’s bewildered expression, pressing a fleeting kiss against the corner of his mouth.<br/>
“Can’t I kiss my friend goodbye? I might not see you again for a while.”</p><p>“It depends. How long?”</p><p>“Almost a month. Maybe more.”</p><p>“Then by all means, take me here and now.”</p><p>Rantaro grins against his mouth as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, and Korekiyo struggles to hold back tears.</p>
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